Eileen Atkins

Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. She has won several major acting awards, including a BAFTA, an Emmy and three Oliviers. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001.

Atkins was born in the Mothers Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army maternity hospital in East London. Her mother, Annie Ellen , was a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and her father, Arthur Thomas Atkins, was a gas meter reader who was previously underchauffeur to the Portuguese Ambassador. She was the third child in the family and when she was born the family moved to a council home in Tottenham. Her father did not, in fact, know how to drive and was responsible, as underchauffeur, mainly for cleaning the car. At the time Eileen was born, her mother worked in a factory the whole day and then as a barmaid in the Elephant amp Castle at night. When Eileen was three, a Gypsy woman came to their door selling lucky heather and clothes pegs. She saw little Eileen and told her mother that her daughter would be a famous dancer. Her mother promptly enrolled her in a dance class. Although she hated it, she studied dancing from agetoor 16. From ageto 15, which covered the last

Source: Wikipedia